Media reactions to Boris Nemtsov's murder

Russia says 'Hitler skull' is authentic

Russia's intelligence service, the FSB, has dismissed a claim by US academics that the fragment of a skull attributed to the former Nazi dictator is in fact that of a woman.

AFP - An officer with the Russian intelligence service the FSB on Monday dismissed a US report suggesting a fragment of Hitler's skull held in Moscow is actually from a woman, insisting their relic is genuine.

"The FSB archives hold the jaw of Hitler and the state archives a fragment of Hitler's skull," said Vassili Khristoforov, head of the FSB archives, told Interfax.

"With the exception of these remains, seized on May 5, 1945, there exist no other bits from the body of Hitler," he added.

In September academics from the University of Connecticut, in the United States, said their DNA analysis showed the skull fragment to be that of a woman, aged between 20 and 40.

They did not test the jawbone.

The researchers had not approached the FSB archives about testing the jawbone, said Khristoforov.

"And even if they had the DNA of our fragments, with what could they then have compared it?" he asked.

"These remains are unique, there is nothing comparable. We are talking about the only evidence of this kind of the death of Hitler, and that is why the FSB had kept it in its archives," he said.

Some Russian officials and scientists had in any case already expressed doubts about the skull fragment.

But the latest comments came against a background of doubts over what really happened in Berlin during the last days of the Nazi regime.

For decades, there has been speculation that Hitler might have escaped -- despite reports from both Soviet troops and British intelligence agents at the time that concluded that Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun died in the bunker.